So I perhaps should envy you, With nothing in the world to do But, idly dozy, And disregarding snow and storm, To just be comfortably warm, And snugly cosy. To pass the time, your pulse you feel, And dream of charms all ills to heal, Like some magician; In mirrors you may see your tongue; You cannot listen to your lung, My poor physician. You read the _Lancet_, I should say, Or books on your complaint, all day, Stiff-bound or limp tomes, And when you put the volumes by, You lie and sigh and try and di- -agnose your symptoms. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. Messrs. CHATTO AND WINDUS have omitted one thing that would have contributed to the full success of their publication of _The Memoirs of the Duchesse de Gontaut_, done out of the French by Mrs. W. DAVIS. They ought to have engaged the services of our E. T. R., who would have been quite at home in illustrating the prehistoric peeps here opened. The Duchesse was _gouvernante_ to those she fondly styles the "children of France" during the Restoration. Of her charges one was "The Child of Miracle," born to the DUCHESSE DE BERRY after the murder of her husband. He was subsequently known to French Royalists as HENRI THE FIFTH, and to the rest of the world as the Comte DE CHAMBORD. What is amazing, in a sense fascinating, to readers at this end of the century, is to find a state of things existing in which such a poor, common-place, fatuous creature as CHARLES THE TENTH could be regarded with reverence, almost worship, by his fellow-creatures. Madame DE GONTAUT, a high-minded, well-educated, sensible woman, almost weeps over the king as in the days of July, 1830, he sat on the balcony at the Palace of St. Cloud playing whist, the game interrupted from time to time by the sound of the tocsin, and the flashing forth of fresh fires in the streets of revolted Paris. On the 28th of July overtures were made from the revolutionary committee in Paris, which might, temporarily at least, have saved the throne had the king accepted their moderate conditions. "I think," he said, for all response, "it is a great impertinence to bring me such propositions." Three days later, at two o'clock in the morning, the king was roused out of his peaceful sleep, and packed off to Dieppe by friends, anxious to save him from the fate of LOUIS THE SIXTEENTH. THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS. * * * * * [Illustration: _Importunate Street Urchin_ (_for the tenth time_). "GI' US A COPPER, SIR! GI' US A COPPER!" _Testy Individual_ (_losing patience_). "OH, GO TO"--(_substitutes a milder form_)--"BLAZES!" _Street Urchin._ "SURE THIN AN' I WOULD IN THIS BASTLY COULD WEATHER, IF I WAS ONLY CERTAIN O' COMIN' BACK AGAIN!" [_Individual's testiness overcome and Urchin rewarded._ ] * * * * * Seasonable Conundrum.